Thursday, November 15th, 2007...10:33 pm
Intermediate Book Club, or How I Came to Be Investigated by Canadian Border Services
The Intermediate Book Club has decided to read Deborah Ellis’ Sacred Leaf, sequel to I am a Taxi (see my review). While we await the arrival of our books, book club members have spent a very enjoyable couple of lunch hours talking about books and debating the relative merits of one author over another.
Today I suggested that we go online and try to find information about the importance of the coca plant in the lives of the traditional peoples of Bolivia. Through their research, Book Club members discovered that the leaves of the coca plant are believed to have many medicinal properties, that, while chewing them might produce a feeling of euphoria, they do not lead to hallucinations, and that records suggest that the Incas were chewing coca as early as the 6th century. They learned that Coca Cola was originally made with coca, and that, with the rise of the international cocaine trade, the plant has become suspect since coca is one of the central ingredients in the production of this illegal and highly addictive drug.
One of the readers found out that one can purchase coca tea bags from Amazon.com, but, when we checked, we discovered that it is not available at Amazon.ca. We believe that coca leaves are illegal in Canada, but, in the interests of research, I have e-mailed the Canadian Border Services to learn more. I hope they take my query in the spirit in which is was intended!
1 Comment
November 16th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Coca leaf and coca tea are illegal in Canada! In the US, you can buy it as a gourmet tea . They’re selling it through a loophole in federal law - you can only buy a certain amount per month and they have to keep track of your credit card, address, account, zip code, area, etc to make sure nobody tries to buy a bunch under assumed names. The cocaine content is low enough to get under Article 26 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs that you would need to buy way, way more than Amazon.com would allow you in order to actually make a useful amount of cocaine if any , because you can not make cocaine out of dry coca leaf and coca tea is dry - crushed coca leaf.
But, http://www.Boliviastores.com ( an Amazon.com associated store) ships to Canada and worldwide not as coca tea in the custom declaration but just as tea or diet tea ( that is no false declaration , coca tea can be used as diet tea and also as gourmet tea) , do not try to order more than 2 X 100ct at the time!
CBRA
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